It’s Valentine’s Day, the one day of the year devoted exclusively to the recognition and creation of romantic love. It is well that there should be such a day — romantic love is one of the best things there is. However, many people view love in the wrong light — and it is those people to whom I would like to address this column.

One need only log onto facebook.com to see many students are interested in “A Relationship.” Presumably, they desire relationships because they wish to fall in love, since love is such a good, happy feeling. But love is by no means a necessary accompaniment of a relationship.

Love is, on the contrary, a very elusive feeling. Just because two people are mutually attracted, does not mean they will fall in love. Their personalities must click; there must be chemistry; they must love each other’s minds, not just their physical bodies.

Moreover, pursuing love, deliberately pursuing it in one single person, is an almost surefire way not to find it. Love comes on its own accord; and if you are looking for a relationship with the intention of finding love, you are almost certainly setting yourself up for a letdown.

The proper approach is not to seek love per se, but rather to interact with as many “love candidates” as possible. If you hang out with many attractive women/men, and view them and interact with them simply as potential friends, then eventually you will find you are falling in love with one of them. But until that happens, you can be worry-free and not be concerned about whether any one of them is attracted to you.

Also, if you view every member of the opposite sex as a friend rather than a lover, you will necessarily appear more attractive; for if you view every attractive girl as a potential girlfriend, you will be nervous, and nervousness is unattractive.

I should stress I am not implying strangers should never interact on a sexual level. On the contrary, I think dating is a swell thing, and advise everyone to go on as many dates as possible. But a date need not be serious. Everyone should view a date as nothing more or less than a check for chemistry, a test for love-potential. If love (or some lesser degree thereof) arises because of a few dates, then splendid; and if not, well, then you’ve made a friend, and that’s almost as good.

Many people go on dates with an almost certain feeling that they wish to be in a relationship with the woman they are dating. This is erroneous. How can you be sure you wish to be in a relationship with a person before you even know her? There need be no pressure on a date; neither party has anything to prove; it’s just a test for mutual chemistry. And if it doesn’t work, then it’s nobody’s fault.

A relationship, in itself, is not a particularly desirable thing. Indeed, the only possible motivations for being in a relationship are love and sex. Why would you wish to give another person so much of your time, hang out with them constantly, unless they are giving you something very good in return? We should not seek relationships; we should enter into them because we like the person enough that we wish to be with her/him on a regular basis. The relationship should come from the liking, not the reverse.

Valentine’s Day is not a day for single people to be sad. I am single and happy as always. It is, rather, a day for couples to exchange gifts, and for people who know each other well and are confident enough that they are falling in love with each other to proclaim their affection. But it isn’t a time to be sad about your singleness, because there’s nothing for which to be sad.

If you desire love, just ask out some promising-looking member of the opposite sex; and recognize that if it works out, great, and if it doesn’t, well, the campus is full of other prospects. If you go on enough dates, you may be confident of finding love in the end, by trial and error.

Oh, and be careful with other people’s hearts.

E-mail Jeff at [email protected]